* * * STAR RATING (out of 4) | Dark comedy

As portrayed by Tom Auclair in the Edge Theatre Company's well-performed production of John Guare's "The House of Blue Leaves," Artie exhibits a boldness that can't mask the strong scent of delusion.

At the start of the play, he sits at a piano, addressing the audience — the one implied — and us. He works his way through tunes he thinks will take him to Hollywood, where his old friend Billy Einhorn (Leroy Leonard) has done pretty well for himself.

It takes only a lyric to know they can't possibly. The songs don't even keep the applause coming at the Eldorado Bar & Grill. The balding zookeeper shouldn't quit his day job.

Artie requests a blue spot light. That he doesn't get it underscores the limits of his clout. That he gets one later in the play suggests the darkness that can descend when a dream (even a misguided one) is deferred.

The lure of celebrity is among the themes teased in Guare's dark, zippy comedy from 1966. "When famous people go to sleep at night, it's us they dream of," Artie's energetic paramour, Bunny (Kelly Uhlenhopp), tells him. Only Artie aspires to be the dreamer, not the dream.

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The year is 1965, and the first visit to America by a pope, Paul VI, has the nation, the city and Artie's modest abode in Sunnyside, Queens, abuzz.

Artie shares his home with his wife, Bananas (Missy Moore). Son Ronnie (Zachary Page) is also at home as he awaits orders to go to Vietnam.

Of course, director Scott Bellot didn't cast the talented Uhlenhopp as Bunny because of her name. But she does keep the show bouncing as she breezes in and out of Artie's apartment.

Intimations of authentic darkness come by way of Bananas, who often wanders in and out of the living room like a bedraggled ghost. Moore gives a mesmerizing, physical turn.

Bananas is schizophrenic, but she's also able to call Artie on his grandiose fantasies. The play's title comes from the institution where Artie plans to relocate his wife.

Artie may be a zookeeper, but Guare's play — with a trio of more profane than sacred nuns, a deaf starlet and a military policeman — offers an atmosphere more like the circus come to town.

And this production, buttressed by appealing performances, is less resonant than it is big-top fun.

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